A Day In The Life Of A Roman Slave

• Lily Bosland, Grade 6, Le Fevre Peninsula Primary School
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Word Zone 2016' competition

My name is Domitia. I’m one of many slaves in my Master, Maximus’ villa. Life is extremely dull and I don’t have friends. As a female child, my jobs aren’t as hard as the men's. The jobs I usually do include setting the table, pouring drinks, scrubbing floors, cleaning dishes, dusting furniture, making beds, washing clothes and planting crops. Sometimes I do harder jobs or more of them. Today is one of those days. Today my Master is trying for the position of Quaestor (Financial Advisor). There will be a big celebration afterwards, whether he gets the job or not.
The Celebration includes a big feast and a visit to the Forum. We slaves will definitely not be going as we are “a disgrace to society’’, according to the Master. There will be around XX People coming, not the Master’s biggest.
With much to prepare, we slaves had only V hours of sleep, going to bed at midnight and arousing before first light. I have to polish the floors harder than usual as there are honoured guests coming, which means more soap, more water and more time. I must make sure I dry it before any of the Master’s family is up. If they slip and fall, all the slaves would be punished because I didn’t dry the floors in time.
I feel very grateful my jobs don’t include cooking, as it is extremely hard work. Cooking is an awfully hot and sweaty job. I’ve almost finished scrubbing the floors till’ they look spick and span. The Master’s wife is awake now, luckily she’s not coming my way, and it will be about XX minutes before she has finished her fancy breakfast, so I’ll be finished and on my next job by then. Now I must clean the dishes.
I find it extremely frustrating that we do all their chores and they still show us absolutely no gratitude. The dishes this morning aren’t as bad as they will be tonight, with only XX plates to wash and the same amount of bowls, it will only take a few minutes. The rest of our Mistress’ family has woken and had breakfast. The day is only going to get harder.
It’s now midday and time for our simple but filling lunch of leftovers. I’ve learnt that if you are not quick the food will be gone before your eyes. Today we were given real food, not even scraps and it was actually served so everyone got the same amount. It must be because the Master got the job and everyone is celebrating. We had quarter of a piece of bread. I stuffed a bit in my pocket for tomorrow because I felt like I had had enough.
This was one of the best days of my life because of the tremendous amount of food and probably the only day in which I was fed well. I will remember from this day that if you work hard, good will come out of it.